iPhone on Vodafone from Janaury 14th – good tariff, free handset, but…
December 21st, 2009 • 18 CommentsApparently, there may be some of you still reading the site over Christmas, so the boss is demanding we tumble arse-over-tit down the ungritted path to the BW office, so we might continue to ladle news from simmering consumer tech broth. And so it’s to the iPhone and news that Vodafone is gearing up to begin selling the iPhone from Janaury 14th.
Orange and Tesco have entered the iPhone market in the past few weeks – whereas Orange could offer little extra than and slightly cheaper tariff and the hope of better coverage, Tesco went for a tariff that undercut both O2 and Orange – if you were prepared to pay through the nose for your handset. So what’s the good news from Vodafone? A £35-per-month tariff for a free 3G handset (on a 24 month contract) puts Vodafone on a par with O2 and Orange (and to get a free 3G handset through Tesco means paying £60 a month), but unlimited texts on Vodafone may suit plenty more punters:
[Note - whether any of these tariffs are a good deal or not depends on whethr you accept a 24 month contract as the norm now and don't roll your eyes whenever it's mentioned]
Courtesy of TechCrunch Europe
The major fly in the ointment is that rather than offering unlimited* (*fair usage shenanigans) data usage, it’s capped at 1GB. As applications become increasingly data-hungry, it’ll be interesting to see how many regular customers hit that ceiling in the months to come.
Love the fact that slowly the prices are coming down – and voda do a tariff that is absolutely perfect for me.
However, still no news on what vodafone are gonna do for existing o2 unlocked iphone users who are on their network. They have always been extremely helpful with us, but I suspect we are about to get ass raped with any official support.
Is it just me or is that £35 a month, not £30?
My wonky eyes. Sorry about that. [quickly scribbles]
Seems an utterly pointless tarrif to me. Why would you want an iPhone with all its internet enabled capabilities and apps on a limited data tarrif ? Completely defeats the object of a convergent device in my view.
The price of the contracts going down probably has less to do with competition and more to do with the fact that they’ll be bringing out an updated version of the iphone next year – right in the middle of you contract!
I agree whats the point of an iphone without unlimited Inetrnet access – its essentail
The new iphone (4G) is already being tested in California & is being released on June 28th, so people need to think very hard about signing up to anything longer than a 6 month contract (which obviously doesn’t exist). There’s nothing particularly to like about these tariffs (I’m already using Vodafone on a 30 day rolling contract 250mins/500texts/500gb data @ £9.96 per month). These tariffs are such a let down.
carnegie…
That tariff you’re on is ridiculous. There is no way I could get that as a new Vodafone user. The closest I could get is £20/mth on a rolling contract.
If you have an O2 unlocked iPhone – you may as well go onto their own simplicity tariff for iPhone – £20 sim only on a 30 day contract gets you the same as the £35/mo iPhone tariff.
1GB isn’t so bad, you’ll have a job burning through that in a month unless you’re a really heavy user.
What is piss-poor is that they want to lock you into a 24 month contract on a handset with hardware that’s pretty much already out of date. Surely there’ll be a new iPhone out in 6 months, and anyone who’s locked in for 18 months after that is going to be sick as a dog.
Sounds like the best traffif yet! Finally unlimited texts on the iPhone and for only £30 a month! Good deal! This is what orange should have done!
May consider getting the iPhone now! Going to watch what happens with all the new Android phones or perhaps a after christmas sale on some of the current ones!
Lets be honest,
If you’re even contemplating getting an iPhone, you actually enjoy getting the piss ripped out of you for the cost of the thing.
I just checked my iPhone usage stats and was astonished to find how little data I’d used – 1G would be fine. 05.G would do too. Now, I rarely watch youtube on it and I don’t use any kind of streaming music/radio so may atypical – but if you are like that too 1G should not be a problem. (I use google maps, read and send email and use google reader)
(and for Jeffrey Archer, I like it so much I would have paid twice as much to get it and, no, I am not a fanboi, and yes, I have a *lot* of relevant technical knowledge and experience – more than you I would be prepared to bet)
£35 a month is a lot just to get a free phone considering there’s a data cap. Especially as it’s a 2 year old version. Even the 3Gs isn’t that great as a phone. Maybe the 4G will bring it up to standard, but it’ll be at a dumbfucks-only price.
@’Bill Gates’
I wouldn’t be so prepared if I were you. Thats very small minded of you, considering many of the readers of BW come from very technical backgrounds… myself included.
My thoughts, are that you’re a ‘fanboi’.
# Posted by carnegie | December 21st, 2009 at 11:58 am
The new iphone (4G) is already being tested in California & is being released on June 28th, so people need to think very hard about signing up to anything longer than a 6 month contract (which obviously doesn’t exist). There’s nothing particularly to like about these tariffs (I’m already using Vodafone on a 30 day rolling contract 250mins/500texts/500gb data @ £9.96 per month). These tariffs are such a let down.
So when is LTE ready, let me see i started puting 3G sites in around 1999 in the UK – how long did it take 3g to get a grip – come on man – your contract would be well over before LTE has anywhere near 10 city coveridge
wakey wakey old man donthinkso carnegie
4G = fourth generation (i.e the 4th iphone model)
dope!
Good point about the data Bill Gates.
I’ve just checked my usage cus I thought I was ripping through my data allowance on O2 downloading loads of apps and using the internet every single day…
To my suprise I’ve used 918MB, not even 1GB since I had the phone 6 months ago!! I’m therefore sure, unless you’re intending to download films and buy everything for your ipod from the itunes store via 3G, that 1GB will be sufficient for most users